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Nope. There's no shared characters and only loosely a shared universe. If you don't enjoy it, it's simply that. More knowledge of the setting won't help.

I've not read Hydrogen Sonata yet, but personally I think reading Consider Phlebas and Look to Windward provides the perfect introduction to the Culture universe.

To the reader struggling with Hydrogen Sonata,I would recommend trying to start out with those two and then moving onto the other books. Player of Games and Excession would be my follow up recommendations

Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton. 350 pages in and it's just so boring, all setup and no payoff. I always liked Hamilton for being a entertaining read, this book not so much. It really needs to improve massively in the last half for it not to be a big waste of time.

There are thousands of things to trash this joke of a fantasy novel for, but few really stood out for me.

1. The whole country feels like three people and domestic animals
2. No bureaucracy, no one ever writes down what King says, economy never explined, no detail
3. Main character is an unsympathetic whiny braindead fuckup who fails at everything repeatedly
4. Autor cripples and tortures him every time but nope, still can't sympathyze with him
5. Trying to set a dark tone and ambigious morality doesn't help when you are failing basic things
6. Like worldbuilding and characterization.
7. So it feels like a highfantasy trash that masqurades as lowfantasy trash, that makes it even worse
8. Lighten up, Robin! Your dry humorless language doesn't make your books better
9. Everyone in the setting know about poisons but antidotes only mentioned once?? What a joke.

I thought it was a decent adventure story but it's a long time since I last read the Assassin books. Robin Hobb is still one of my favourite fantasy authors for the Soldier Son trilogy but I guess there's no point recommending it if you hated the other books that much. And her latest trilogy about a weird mutant girl who runs off to live with the dragons reeks of author insertion fantasy, wasn't too impressed with that.

Not a book in the strictest sense - but I got two copies of Interzone from Amazon's Kindle service. Good SF magazine from what I have read so far... I also tried the digital versions of Asimov's and Analog, but found the stories to be old-fashioned Hard SF lacking believable characters and/or juvenile adventures.

There are thousands of things to trash this joke of a fantasy novel for, but few really stood out for me.

1. The whole country feels like three people and domestic animals
2. No bureaucracy, no one ever writes down what King says, economy never explined, no detail
3. Main character is an unsympathetic whiny braindead fuckup who fails at everything repeatedly
4. Autor cripples and tortures him every time but nope, still can't sympathyze with him
5. Trying to set a dark tone and ambigious morality doesn't help when you are failing basic things
6. Like worldbuilding and characterization.
7. So it feels like a highfantasy trash that masqurades as lowfantasy trash, that makes it even worse
8. Lighten up, Robin! Your dry humorless language doesn't make your books better
9. Everyone in the setting know about poisons but antidotes only mentioned once?? What a joke.

So it's a JRPG?

NalanoH. Wildmoon
Director of the Friends of Nalano PAC
Attorney at Lawl
"His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy." - Woody Allen

I'm almost finished with A Game of Thrones. I've about two chapters left and about four chapters ago I realized I was only reading it to finish it.

I like the show more. There hasn't been much detail in the book that I don't believe didn't carry into the show. Apart from finding out that some people who I didn't realize where related are actually related, but an hour or two on a wiki would've sorted that.

Should I try continue in the books? I admit I liked it at the start, but then it just got a bit slow and now it's going at a crawl, but that could just be because I know what happens already at the end. Also the show did a much better job with Ned Starks death than the book.

I'm almost finished with A Game of Thrones. I've about two chapters left and about four chapters ago I realized I was only reading it to finish it.

I like the show more. There hasn't been much detail in the book that I don't believe didn't carry into the show. Apart from finding out that some people who I didn't realize where related are actually related, but an hour or two on a wiki would've sorted that.

Should I try continue in the books? I admit I liked it at the start, but then it just got a bit slow and now it's going at a crawl, but that could just be because I know what happens already at the end. Also the show did a much better job with Ned Starks death than the book.

Well If you didn't enjoy the first one I don't know if I'd recommend you to read the following books. I've enjoyed them a lot but some of them (second and fourth books) can get a little tiring and feel somewhat stretched.

There's a lot that the show misses out on, especially in season two (Riverrun anyone?). I'd recommend reading the books and then watching the show for anyone interested, but if you've already determined you don't like the books you're probably better off sticking with just the show.

Brans whole thing definitely doesn't really get explained in the show and I think that's a shame because its going to be even more confusing when it gets used which I'm guessing it ill be soon.

Reading A feast For Crows myself I think this is definitely a more world building book, I think it does well in fleshing out the world and giving you some common people and what has happened to them in the world but my god is it slow and not really much interest happens in a lot of the chapters. That wouldn't be a problem if it didn't talk about more interesting stuff going on in the background i want to see the outlaws and there war, I want to see more of Arya and less Cersei which is a broken record its like the same chapter over and over again it seems, i want to see more of the intrigue of Dorne unfortunatly that one is definitly a missed opportunity it shows intriguing things then when you go back to it the intriguing thing has already happened and you were like I really would have liked to see that to be honest.

Anyway good things about it I do genuinly like the atmosphere still its definitly a bleak world thats fully realised and the characters are still pretty strong with a lot of memorable side characters and sometimes it is slow but its world building so I don't totally mind it. But I am kind of reading it to get to the end and seeing where Dance Of Dragons go.

Brans whole thing definitely doesn't really get explained in the show and I think that's a shame because its going to be even more confusing when it gets used which I'm guessing it ill be soon.

Reading A feast For Crows myself I think this is definitely a more world building book, I think it does well in fleshing out the world and giving you some common people and what has happened to them in the world but my god is it slow and not really much interest happens in a lot of the chapters. That wouldn't be a problem if it didn't talk about more interesting stuff going on in the background i want to see the outlaws and there war, I want to see more of Arya and less Cersei which is a broken record its like the same chapter over and over again it seems, i want to see more of the intrigue of Dorne unfortunatly that one is definitly a missed opportunity it shows intriguing things then when you go back to it the intriguing thing has already happened and you were like I really would have liked to see that to be honest.

Anyway good things about it I do genuinly like the atmosphere still its definitly a bleak world thats fully realised and the characters are still pretty strong with a lot of memorable side characters and sometimes it is slow but its world building so I don't totally mind it. But I am kind of reading it to get to the end and seeing where Dance Of Dragons go.

The fourth book is the slowest and more tedious one. A dance with dragons picks up the pacea lot.

It's still longer than it should but at least a lot of interesting stuff happens.
Feast was lacking in the "stuff that happens" department.
Edit: I've read some of those amazon comments. They're right, the story doesn't advance a lot (still much more than in feast) but there are still interesting things, it seems to me that it broadens the scope and sets up a lot of things rather than resolve them.

Not a book in the strictest sense - but I got two copies of Interzone from Amazon's Kindle service. Good SF magazine from what I have read so far... I also tried the digital versions of Asimov's and Analog, but found the stories to be old-fashioned Hard SF lacking believable characters and/or juvenile adventures.

I used to read Interzone on a very occasional basis, haven't seen a physical copy in years.

Originally Posted by everyone

Game of Thrones talk.

I'm beginning to think I'm the only person who hasn't indulged in this series in some way and it's starting to get to the point where I avoid it for that reason, honestly I'll get round to it sooner or later.